Allies of Donald Trump shattered political norms, stirred controversy and issued misleading claims against Democrats during the second night of the Republican party’s national convention on Tuesday.
In speech after speech, a collection of Trump’s family members, allies, rightwing campaigners and swing-state farmers portrayed the president as the best hope for America’s future.
A spokesperson for Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden said Tuesday’s event presented an “alternate reality” that failed to acknowledge the severity of the coronavirus pandemic or its economic fallout.
In his speech on Tuesday, Larry Kudlow, who leads the White House’s council of economic advisers, described the coronavirus pandemic in the past tense, apparently ignoring that hundreds continue to die each day.
More than 175,000 people have died and more than 5.7 million have been infected in the US, far more than any other country in the world.
“President Trump’s RNC is an alternate reality. In this delusion, thousands of Americans didn’t die in the last week from Covid-19, nor have millions of Americans been infected or put out of work. Our economy hasn’t ground to a halt and our kids aren’t being kept home from school,” Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, said in a statement.
“Donald Trump’s continual refusal to take this virus seriously has given the United States the worst outbreak in the world, and his convention’s refusal to come to grips with reality or acknowledge the magnitude of the loss is a stark reminder to Americans of his complete failure to lead.”
As Trump trails Biden in national polls, some speakers claimed that Trump’s first-term accomplishments were being ignored, while Biden and Democrats enjoy the cover of a sympathetic media.
“My father ran, not because he needed the job, but because he knew hardworking people across this great country were being left behind,” said Eric Trump, the executive vice-president of the Trump Organization, which is currently under investigation. “The media mocked these patriots – and ‘the flyover states’ in which they lived.”
Meanwhile, Trump and members of his administration raised ethics concerns and broke longstanding traditions by using their public office positions for political purposes.
In a pre-recorded segment played early on in the evening, the president used his executive power to pardon Jon Ponder, a man from Nevada who founded an organization to help prisoners reintegrate into society after he served time in prison for robbing a bank. Later, the convention aired a naturalization ceremony for a diverse group of new American citizens, swearing their allegiance to the United States with the acting homeland security secretary, Chad Wolf, and Trump present.
Mike Pompeo became the first sitting secretary of state to address a national convention in 75 years, again prompting criticism that he was inappropriately using his office for political gain. Pompeo himself has high political aspirations and has been mentioned as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2024. He used his brief speech to tout the Trump administration’s major foreign policy moves.
“This president has led bold initiatives in nearly every corner of the world,” Pompeo said, going on to say Trump had “held China accountable for covering up the China virus”, without providing details. He also noted the Trump administration moved the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and claimed that under Trump’s leadership the “Isis caliphate is wiped out”. The commander of US Central Command said this week the terror group has not been completely defeated.
Legal observers warned the segments appeared to violate the Hatch Act, which bans federal employees from taking part in political activity while on duty.
“Feels like the whole using the White House as a backdrop for a political campaign has been completely normalized already,” tweeted the former SDNY prosecutor Mimi Rocah. “It’s never been done before for a reason. It’s a violation of the Hatch Act, it’s a misuse of government resources & an abuse of power.”
Melania Trump gave the most sympathetic speech of the evening in front of an audience in the Rose Garden of the White House. She touched on the country’s ongoing opioid epidemic and alluded to the high death toll from the coronavirus pandemic.
“My deepest sympathy goes to everyone who has lost a loved one and my prayers are with those who are ill and suffering,” the first lady said. On the ongoing racial unrest in the country the first lady refrained from blaming it on anarchists as other speakers have throughout the convention.
“Like all of you, I have reflected on the racial unrest in our country,” the first lady said. “It’s a harsh reality. We are not proud of parts of our history.”
The four-day convention is also including Republicans who embrace the QAnon conspiracy theory. Mary Ann Mendoza, who was set to speak on Tuesday, urged her Twitter followers to look into an antisemitic QAnon conspiracy. She was reportedly taken off the list of scheduled speakers shortly before Tuesday night’s program began.
On Tuesday, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congressional candidate in Georgia with a long record of engaging in QAnon circles, was invited to attend Trump’s nomination acceptance speech on Thursday.
Tuesday’s speakers also railed against “cancel culture”, and the pro-choice movement, and argued that Biden and his family have enjoyed unfair advantages because of the Democratic nominee’s former position as vice-president, despite many members of the Trump family holding influential positions as White House advisers and Trump campaign surrogates.
The former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi directly attacked Biden’s son Hunter during her speech.
“A corrupt Ukrainian oligarch put Hunter on the board of his gas company, even though he had no experience in the country – or in the energy sector. None. Yet he was paid millions to do nothing,” Bondi claimed in her speech. “He only had one qualification that mattered: he was the son of the man in charge of distributing US aid to Ukraine.”
There is no evidence the Bidens broke the law. Trump’s attempt to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate them prompted the impeachment process against him. He became the third president in US history to be impeached.
Bondi’s speech bashing nepotism was immediately followed by a speech from Tiffany Trump, the president’s 26-year-old daughter who recently graduated law school. The daughter of the billionaire American president said Trump was the candidate of criminal justice reform and the economy, which is struggling, with more than 30 million Americans unemployed as the country fails to control the coronavirus pandemic.
“As a recent graduate, I can relate to so many of you who might be looking for a job,” Tiffany Trump said. “My father built a thriving economy once, and believe me, he will do it again.”
Many of the minority or African American speakers addressed race during their speeches. Daniel Cameron, the African American attorney general of Kentucky, pegged as a rising star in the Republican party, used a portion of his speech to bash past comments Biden made on race.
“I think often about my ancestors who struggled for freedom. And as I think of those giants and their broad shoulders, I also think about Joe Biden, who says: ‘If you aren’t voting for me, you ain’t black,’ Cameron said.
The Trump campaign described Tuesday’s events as focused on honoring “the opportunities all Americans now have, thanks to President Trump’s policies and his leadership empowering all Americans to achieve their full potential”.